1. Field of the Described Embodiments
The present disclosure relates generally to gaming machines, and more particularly to using an access service to remotely control an electronic gaming machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many of today's gaming casinos and other entertainment locations feature different single and multi-player gaming systems such as slot machines and video poker machines. The gaming machines may include a number of hardware and software components to provide a wide variety of game types and game playing capabilities. Exemplary hardware components may include bill validators, coin acceptors, card readers, keypads, buttons, levers, touch screens, coin hoppers, ticket printers, player tracking units and the like. Software components may include, for example, boot and initialization routines, various game play programs and subroutines, credit and payout routines, image and audio generation programs, various component modules and a random or pseudo-random number generator, among others.
Gaming machines are highly regulated to ensure fairness. In many cases, gaming machines may be operable to dispense monetary awards of a large amount of money. Accordingly, access to gaming machines is often carefully controlled. For example, in some jurisdictions, routine maintenance requires that extra personnel (e.g., gaming control personnel) be notified in advance and be in attendance during such maintenance. Additionally, gaming machines may have hardware and software architectures that differ significantly from those of general-purpose computers (PCs), even though both gaming machines and PCs employ microprocessors to control a variety of devices. For example, gaming machines may have more stringent security requirements and fault tolerance requirements. Additionally, gaming machines generally operate in harsher environments as compared with PCs.
In contrast to gaming machines located in brick and mortar gaming environments, many online gaming services are mostly or wholly unregulated. For example, an online gaming service may have servers located overseas in a country that does not regulate wager-based games. Without oversight or accountability, an unscrupulous online gaming service can falsely advertise odds to give the service an unfair advantage. A user of such a service may also be putting his or her financial information at risk, since there is no accountability for an unregulated online gaming service.